Boychild

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Tosh Basco, known by her performance name boychild (stylized in lowercase), is an American performance artist, dancer, and photographer. [1]

Basco identifies as nonbinary and transgender, but considers the boychild persona to be female in order to challenge gender norms. [2] Boychild’s performances often consist of lip-syncing to heavily distorted pop songs. [2] Her style includes a shaved head, full-body makeup, tinted contact lenses, and neon lighting. [3] She lives and works predominately in California and Hong Kong. [4]

Work

Basco was born in Sacramento, California, and grew up in San Francisco during the 1990s. [2] She experimented with drag at an early age and cites Dia Dear as an early influence. [5] Basco began performing as boychild in 2012 in the San Francisco drag scene. [2] Boychild states that she is not exactly a drag queen, [6] but notes that her persona offers truth to the notion that "trans drag performers expand the possibilities of drag altogether." [7] Basco states that the boychild persona was developed during months of research into clowns, healers, and non-western cultures, medicine men, shamans, and witches. [5] [8]

Boychild's performances often reference the ideas of cyborgs and posthumanism. [9] [10] [11] Some of her performances are presented as one-time-only events.[ citation needed ] Boychild has said that working in nightlife is crucial because "nothing contextualizes [my] performance the same way as these places do. It’s my world, my existence in the underground." [6]

Boychild walked in Hood By Air's 2013 spring/summer show alongside A$AP Rocky. [12] Later that year, boychild toured with singer Mykki Blanco. [13]

Since 2013, boychild has frequently collaborated with multimedia performer Wu Tsang. [13] [14] Their collaborations have led to numerous projects such as Moved by the Motion,[ clarification needed ] [15] [16] which includes cellist Patrick Belaga, dancer Josh Johnson, electronic musician Asma Maroof, and poet Fred Moten. [17]

Boychild's performances have been presented at the Gropius Bau, the Venice Biennale, the Sydney Biennial, the Whitney Museum of American Art, MoMA PS1, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, ICA London, and Berghain. [18] [19]

Many of boychild's performances are part of her #Untitled Lip-Sync series.[ clarification needed ] [20] [21] Within the # series, many of boychild's lip-sync performances incorporate elements like lights and paint to accompany the movement and music. [20]

References

  1. ↑ "How collaboration is the driving force behind Wu Tsang's mesmerising new film on the Migrant Crisis". www.sleek-mag.com. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Riszko, Leila (2017-07-03). "Breaching bodily boundaries: posthuman (dis)embodiment and ecstatic speech in lip-synch performances by boychild". International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. 13 (2): 153–169. doi: 10.1080/14794713.2017.1348094 . S2CID   27049412 – via EBSCO Host.
  3. ↑ "Boychild - 0 Artworks, Bio & Shows on Artsy". www.artsy.net. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  4. ↑ "BOMB Magazine | Wu Tsang & boychild". BOMB Magazine. 18 August 2017. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  5. 1 2 Team, i-D. (2013-11-13). "all about the boychild". i-D. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  6. 1 2 Person, Hili (October 29, 2014). "Truth in Gender: Wu Tsang and boychild on the question of queerness". Sleek.
  7. ↑ Lefevre, Finn (2021), "Lip-Syncing for Our Lives: Queering Dissent in Queer & Now a Lip-Sync Spectacular", The Palgrave Handbook of Queer and Trans Feminisms in Contemporary Performance, Cham: Springer International Publishing, pp. 243–262, doi:10.1007/978-3-030-69555-2_14, ISBN   978-3-030-69554-5, S2CID   240554131 , retrieved 2022-12-19
  8. ↑ "boychild". Biennale of Sydney. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  9. ↑ Popat, Sita (2017-07-03). "Bodily extensions and performance". International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. 13 (2): 101–104. doi:10.1080/14794713.2017.1358525. PMC   5720339 . PMID   29226918 – via EBSCO Host.
  10. ↑ Haraway, Donna (1991). "A Cyborg Manifesto". Artificial Life: Critical Contexts: 456.
  11. ↑ "Improvisation, Make-up and Lip-sync" . Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  12. ↑ Hawgood, Alex (2013-04-10). "Hood by Air Has a Fashion Moment". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  13. 1 2 Dazed (2014-09-08). "Boychild on bending the rules of gender". Dazed. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  14. ↑ Harvey, James (2018-08-01), "Introduction: Politics and Art Cinema", Jacques Rancière and the Politics of Art Cinema, Edinburgh University Press, pp. 1–22, doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9781474423786.003.0001, ISBN   9781474423786, S2CID   181361188 , retrieved 2022-12-19
  15. ↑ "Moved by the Motion: Sudden Rise". whitney.org. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  16. ↑ “Wu Tsang and Boychild in Conversation with Michelle Puetz.” MCA, Accessed 29 Apr. 2025.
  17. ↑ "How I became an artist: Wu Tsang". Art Basel. Retrieved 2020-05-08.
  18. ↑ "Performance by Tosh Basco (aka boychild) - "Untitled: darkness"". Wesleyan University. November 7, 2020.
  19. ↑ "ICPP". icpp.space. Retrieved 2025-04-29.
  20. 1 2 Hamamcioglu, Gamze (2020). Gesturing Toward Utopia: Queer Time and Place in the Performance Art of Cassils, boychild and Marval A Rex. İhsan Doğramacı Bilkent University. pp. 85–88.
  21. ↑ Riszko, Leila (2017-07-03). "Breaching bodily boundaries: posthuman (dis)embodiment and ecstatic speech in lip-synch performances by boychild". International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media. 13 (2): 153–169. doi:10.1080/14794713.2017.1348094. ISSN   1479-4713.
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